Thursday, October 21, 2010

A new design: Cables and Lace Cardigan

As most knitters do, I like to read pattern books while knitting. I have quite a collection from various designers and am always inspired by their work.
I was flipping through my copy of Sock Innovation by Cooke a not to long ago and saw her sock design called Sunshine. All the socks in this book are designed for someone and this certain someone was named Sunshine. Anyway, I was intrigued as she blended a pretty lace pattern with a cable int he same 6 stitch vertical area, WOW...
And then I noticed that every other row was just knit and pearl. Even better. I have no trouble doing a pattern row on each row IF I'm working in the round. The sweater that I had in mind for my next project was a cardigan so either I knit in the round and include steek stitches to cut or find an interesting pattern that I can work from the right side of my knitting while knitting flat. Here it is! I ordered some Stroll sport from Knit Picks right away to see how this might knit up.
I was very pleased with the results...so cast on for a cardigan. The gauge is 6 st. per inch on #4 needles. I'm working up a size 40 so ordered 11 balls of 5 gms. This sweater will have a border added after it is knit so I added 3 extra stitches to the 21 pattern repeats to have a 2 stitch twisted cable and a pearl stitch on the edge. The last stitch is pearled on the right side and knit on the wrong side creating a nice place to pick up the stitches for the front band. I'm not positive what the front band will look like as yet. Thoughts are: lace with garter, simple yo, knit 2 tog. or possibly the twisted garter stitch border I've used before that was inspired by Grimes' book on French Girl Knits. Anyway...more on that later. The sweater will be a cardigan with v neck shaping, all over pattern and raglan sleeves. After blocking the lace will be more apparent but I like the fact that my shaping is done for me because this is basically a ribbed sweater.  It will shape in nicely for the waistline.   A sport weight gives it great versatility for wearing along on warmer days but not to heavy to add a jacket of colder ones. More on this soon.

Tuesday, October 5, 2010

Something small and pink



I have a wonderful friend that I've known for 25+ years...hard to believe, time goes so fast. I've known her daughter since she was a year old and now this girl is married and having a little one of her own. We know that the baby will be a girl so ...get out the pink yarn...
I found this darling pattern in my stash filed under "I'm going to make it someday" and ordered an organic worsted weight cotton from knitpicks to make it. It is knit from the top down with a cute YO, k2tog lace pattern interspersed with stockinette. It worked up in a weekend! The little hat is a basic rolled brim hat and I worked the pattern on the crown, voila, a matching set! This gets packed soon and sent off as the baby is due this month!